Blackmagic Forum

I'm not only a new DaVinci Resolve user, but new to editing digital video and find the program overall fantastic.

While a 27" monitor is adequate to edit with DaVinci Resolve, I would sure love to have the preview on a different monitor while the controls and tracks on a separate monitor. No matter what I've tried I the best I can do is swap primary and secondary monitors. I'd love to be able to spread out on two monitors. I have to wonder if this is a feature reserved for the Studio (paid) version? or if I'm missing something in the free version? I note there there used to be a "clean screen" menu item in earlier versions.

What am I missing?????

Yes, you can use two monitors in the free version. The clean video output is in the Studio version.
Laptop or desktop, Mac or Windows?
These are my setting in Windows. I'm using a desktop PC.

The bottom pic above is only showing the Timeline window as I have set it to this instead of both. The pics below show what you would see on two monitors.

Charles Bennett wrote:Yes, you can use two monitors in the free version. The clean video output is in the Studio version.
Laptop or desktop, Mac or Windows?
These are my setting in Windows. I'm using a desktop PC.

Thanks Charles... I didn't think to try the NVidea control panel, which I did and followed your template exactly. But when I went into D.R. the "dual screen" selection was still grayed out. I can't imagine what the problem is.

FWIW my computer is a Dell Alienware Aurora R7 with a GeForce GRX 1070 graphics card and 32GB of memory (plus the 16 on the card). Windows 10 OS. I have no idea what to look for next. Any thoughts?

Are both your monitors connected to the GTX 1070? If not, they should be.
Also make sure you haven't got the GTX 1070 set to span the displays.
Can't think of anything else.

@charles bennett

I don't know what else to do. I checked the NVIDIA settings and other than having 3 monitors rather than 2 (tried taking one off line) my settings are the same as yours. Still DaVinci doesn't want to activate the dual screen function. Not sure what to try next.

Thanks for your help. Let me know if you see or think of anything else.

When you took the third monitor offline did you just turn it off or did you unplug it from the GTX 1070?
Also, right click on your desktop and select Display Settings. Make sure Extend these displays is selected.

I suppose the fact that you're running Windows 7 could be the issue (as you just mentioned in your other thread) - Resolve 16 only officially supports Windows 10.

Yes, that could be an issue, but he does say Win 10 in his second post above.
One last thing, what do you see in the Primary Display tab?

TheBloke wrote:I suppose the fact that you're running Windows 7 could be the issue (as you just mentioned in your other thread) - Resolve 16 only officially supports Windows 10.

I mentioned Windows 7 (I think in another post) because when I did a search for "Windows System Information" something different appears in Win7 compared to Win10.

For video editing I am using an Alienware Aurora R7 with GTX1070 graphics card and 32GB memory (plus 16 on the GTX). Computer is 12 months old.

Charles Bennett wrote:Yes, that could be an issue, but he does say Win 10 in his second post above.
One last thing, what do you see in the Primary Display tab?

I took the third monitor off line by unplugging entirely. I then went into NVIDIA settings and checked them for position and monitors 1 and 2. Then I went into Win10 display settings and made sure that I was in extended display mode. Everything seemed to check out. HOWEVER, when I then opened DaVinci Resolve, still not being able to access dual screen I checked to see what the primary display read... and I got the following (see photo). I'm only getting "generic monitors" listed. I can switch them back and forth for the primary/secondary in that menu but obviously it is not recognizing the specific monitors, Dell U2717D and Asus VW246H.

FYI... The third monitor that got unplugged was hooked up via display port. The two remaining monitors are on HDMI. The Dell has a display port. Perhaps I should try using that instead of HDMI?

EDIT/UPDATE
Since posting this reply, having taken the third monitor offline, I used the display port cable that the 3rd monitor used, and plugged it into the Dell instead of the HDMI cable that it was using. Still no change in status in Davinci. The following screenshot is still the same.

Based on your screen shot it seems that DaVinci should be able to recognize the specific monitors, but seems to fail to do that. Perhaps that is the issue? But if so, what is the fix for that?

Mine recognizes the monitors because I have installed the proper drivers that came on disc with them. This might be worth a try.

Charles Bennett wrote:Mine recognizes the monitors because I have installed the proper drivers that came on disc with them. This might be worth a try.

Good suggestion. I’ll try that this morning.

Charles Bennett wrote:Mine recognizes the monitors because I have installed the proper drivers that came on disc with them. This might be worth a try.

Progress Charles! Thanks for the suggestion of loading the drivers. It wasn't as straight forward as I would have presumed as a I had to load the Dell monitor manager as well as the driver. The ASUS driver refused to load because it required MS .NET Framework 4.8 and the .NET installer balked because I had a LATER version of .NET Framework already installed, and the ASUS driver wouldn't go any further to load (maddening).

But anyway, while DaVinci Resolve doesn't recognize the monitors specifically... I DID GET DUAL SCREEN TO COME ALIVE!!!...

But now that I have it I don't know how to arrange it. I went through all the workspace menus and don't have a handle on it. Any tips there?

Thanks for your help and perseverence.

So now that I can get dual monitors, I saw a video that, to get the secondary monitor to do a full screen preview you turn OFF dual monitors, then turn on "clean screen" which should be a few menu items below. However I do not have that option. Is that reserved for the Studio version?

That is only in the Studio version.

Vincent, apart from the screen shots I posted above, there is also the option of a full screen Timeline, useful if you have a lot of video and audio tracks.
I would suggest you create a simple dummy edit and play around with the setting to see what you can and can't do.
The pics below show the Full Screen Timeline and also the way I like to have Resolve displayed when editing.

Charles Bennett wrote:That is only in the Studio version.

Vincent, apart from the screen shots I posted above, there is also the option of a full screen Timeline, useful if you have a lot of video and audio tracks.
I would suggest you create a simple dummy edit and play around with the setting to see what you can and can't do.
The pics below show the Full Screen Timeline and also the way I like to have Resolve displayed when editing.

Thanks Charles. I can see that in the not too distant future I'll pay up for the Studio version. I am so grateful to have such a valuable and full featured free version to learn on that I would be willing to pay just to support the development. Cash is just a bit tight right now so it will have to wait a bit. This is such a breath of fresh air compared to Adobe Premier where you get gouged every month for every little thing "renting" their software. Somehow that notion just leaves a sour taste in my mouth [and more sour yet is that I can no longer activate older versions of Photoshop on my new computer that I BOUGHT AND ARE STILL FUNCTIONAL EVEN ON WIN10].

I can use one of my old completed projects that I can use for my dummy edit to set up my screens. I'll have to see if I can find the full screen timeline menu item (hopefully in the free version).

Thanks again for bearing with me.

You're very welcome, Vincent. Don't forget the very comprehensive user manual, and the training videos you will find here. https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/uk/products/davinciresolve/training

Every screen shot I've posted is from the free version of Resolve. Full Screen Timeline is found here.